Wounded Pride
by IDespiseTragedy
Summary: No, it wouldn't do for a kappa—the fastest of all freshwater creatures—to lose in a swimming match with a mere human!


Credits: Thank you so much to _fickleAdoxograph _for beta reading

Disclaimer: None of_ Free! Iwatobi Swimming Club _or its elements is mine

Warnings: folklorish quasi-AU, mild anthropophagy

Author's Note: Enjoy your Christmas present, _madamada-chan_!

The boys' height when they were 10 years old:

Makoto: 151 cm

Haruka: 145 cm

Rin: 145 cm

Nagisa: 135 cm

* * *

**Wounded Pride **

Beneath the signboard of "_Second Year, Class Five_," the door slid close with a firm thud. A man made his way into the classroom, his each stride followed by the curious glances from the thirty-seven pairs of students' eyes.

"Is he Matsushita-sensei's substitute?" A boy whispered to his neighbor as he adjusted his glasses; the Japanese Literature teacher was rumored to start her maternity leave any day now.

"Ssh!" The class representative—a lanky girl in ponytail—brusquely hushed her classmates before issuing the first of the standard greetings for a teacher's arrival:"Rise!"

All chatter died down. The only sound remaining was the scraping of the chair legs against the floor as the class stood up.

"Bow!" the class representative instructed them next.

All heads were down, all bodies bowed, and all arms hanging to the sides. All except one.

'_Meat.'_

Reflected in a boy's eyes was a succulent nape, protruding daintily from above the rim of the sailor uniform collar right before him. He licked his lips as saliva began to dribble from the corners of his mouth, his stomach contracting with hunger. There was nothing more appetizing than the scent of human flesh whose owners' hearts were still beating. The shoulder-length hair above it was parted in two, each tied with fuchsia elastic band, hence exposing the slender cream-colored skin as defenselessly as a lamb for slaughter.

"Sit!"

The students began to seat themselves, but the girl with fuchsia hairband clamped her hands around her ears and groaned, "Why's the bell ringing so loudly?"

Her classmates looked at her in confusion; none of them heard such a sound. But before any of them had the chance to ask, a shriek fell from the girl's mouth. "Augh!"

'_Meat. Fresh and warm. Living flesh.'_

Blood streaked down the side of her neck, suffusing her white cravat with carmine. Rancid odor pervaded the air. A choir of screams pierced the classroom as the other students discerned what had attacked a member of their class: incarnadine cavity appeared on the student's nape, revealing torn nerves and flesh. Emerging from the slope of her shoulder was the unkempt, fandango hair of Matsuoka Rin.

Color drained from her face, a neighboring girl with high cheekbones cried, "Matsuoka-kun, what are you doing?!"

Rin offered no answer, his eyes flickering with desire for more of fresh meat, a narrow strip of her skin dangling between his incisors, the tangy blood flooding the base of his mouth and trickling down his chin.

"Keep your teeth off her, Matsuoka!" Two neighboring boys rushed to the bleeding girl's aid.

'_Why are these puny humans interrupting my repast?'_

Before the two boys managed to haul Rin by his arms, a condescendingly calm voice halted them. "You two, get away from him."

Mouths agape, the students looked at the speaker, who was none other than the supposedly new teacher. Nobody had seen him approaching, and yet, here he was, standing in their midst like a rabbit popping up from a magician's hat.

Before Rin could see more, a rectangular piece of paper blocked his view; the "teacher" had attached an _ofuda_ to his forehead.

"_Naumaku sanmanda bazara dan kan!"_

"Damn you, exorcist!" Rin heard himself curse in the midst of his classmates' screams.

That became the last thing he had done before his humanoid shell disintegrated into ashes, revealing the nacreous green scales of a giant salamander, and his true form was forced to return to where it belonged: the river—the deep, sunless region where water was coldest, where the layers of the soil sediments and the lushness of fanwort, water-milfoil and pondweed concealed the kappa's existence from humans' prying eyes.

Rin woke up with the strangest sensation of his heart wildly leaping to his throat. Still breathing in short bursts, he glimpsed at the clock on the wall; twenty past four, it showed. From the partially drawn curtain on the window, the slate-gray pre-dawn sky was visible. Yet, in the wake of such a nightmare, sleep could no longer reclaim him.

He trailed his tongue across the row of his pointy teeth. While it was true that he, like any other omnivorous kappa, _could_ consume humans, he did not welcome its prospect. Not after this intriguing species—or one of them, at least—managed to best him in a swimming competition seven years before. Even now, the memory of that defeat was still engraved in Rin's mind.

###

One blustery day, the fuming Rin went to the surface because no one wanted to hang around with him. Like other ten-year-old children, he had a fight with one of his usual playmates, and the other kappa kids conspired not to play with him unless he apologized first. In their determination not to spoil children of royal blood, his parents made it perfectly clear that other folks should not give him special treatment just because he was the third in line for the throne succession, after his father and elder brother. Still, this did not justify for his friends to gang up against him when he was not the one in the wrong (according to _his_ point view).

Bearing his grandmother's words in mind about laboratorial experiments and other dangers humans could pose upon encounter with what they called "mythical beings," Rin took precaution to blend in with the humans by transforming himself into one of them—this was an ability that every kappa had. Three human boys were sploshing about the shallowest part of the river, of which water reached above their waist. They probably frequented the river during summer; despite their youthful smoothness, the skins above the waistline of their tight black swimming trunks were tanned.

"Mako-chan, Haru-chan, look, look! A tomato clownfish! Isn't it pretty?" Excitement sparked in the cerise eyes of the boy as he pointed at a ruddy small fish, ignoring completely how the breeze ruffled his golden hair.

The boy with olive green hair, who was the tallest of the three, treaded the water to get closer to the fish. A smile on his face, his droopy green eyes followed the fish with genuine interest as it swam past his leg.

The other boy, however, had spared no more than the briefest glimpse at the fish before turning his attention back to the river water. He just stared silently at the water that was as blue as his eyes, as though it was the most beautiful thing in waking life. The next second, he remarked with a blank expression on his face, "Let's swim."

"Sheesh, Haru-chan, you can't see pooling water without swimming in it, can you?" the shortest boy jokingly pouted.

The droopy-eyed one smiled and remarked, "Can't be helped. Let's do it."

The boy who asked for the swim expressed neither gratitude nor discontent; he seemed to be accustomed to take others' kindness for granted. More strangely still, his friends took no offense, just equally accustomed to his behavior.

Without further delay, the three boys took position by aligning themselves on a straight line. Rin wondered if the tallest boy would be the fastest of the three.

That boy adopted a swimming stroke that was performed on the back with the arms lifted alternately out of the water in a backward circular motion and the legs extended and kicking. His muscles bunched and his face was tense with effort. His rough but dynamic stroke seemed capable of leaving everyone behind. Yet, although Rin did not know that humans called this swimming style "backstroke," his aquatic nature enabled him to recognize the imperfection in the human's movements. First off, the human boy's chin was tucked, which forced his head to come high out of the water, creating resistance as he swam. This, in turn, made his feet want to be under his head and it became nearly impossible to keep his hips afloat, since human bodies always wanted to be in alignment.

'_Too bad lanky doesn't relax his neck a bit more,'_ Rin thought before he turned his attention to the second human.

Like a frog, the cheerful boy swam on his front. Face in the water, he pushed his arms forward and then swept them back in a circular movement from under his chest, while he tucked his legs in toward the body and then kicked outward. So captivating were his movements that he created the illusion that his arms extended as he swam. Midway, however, his stomach dipped too deep and his formerly brilliant form started to break. Although he mastered his timing so that his pull and kick did not happen simultaneously, he did not always succeed in controlling his arms and elbows from going too far back, passing the shoulders—a waste of movement that only slowed his swim time.

Still watching from behind a large rock, Rin scoffed inwardly, _'Humans and their pathetic swimming styles!'_ Even as he looked at the third boy, never had he imagined that this one human would betray his low expectation.

The nonchalant boy kept his head down in the water and alternately reached forward with his arms while propelling his body forward with flutter kicks. Nor did he waste his stamina by going kick crazy. He breathed bilaterally every third stroke, creating a perfect symmetry. Had he breathed on one side, it could have caused his stroke to be lopsided and prevented him from swimming in a straight line. Had he lifted his head fully, it would have slowed down his timing as well as ruin his form. While underwater, he breathed out all of his air through his nose so that he did not have to exhale that last bit of air when he should be inhaling on his next breathing stroke.

No matter where Rin's eyes followed the dark-haired boy's movements, his form remained without flaw. Shoulders, torso and hips all rolled together as one, the human kept his body floating to the top of the water's surface to give him even more balance and speed. This human boy was something else. More than merely fast, he inspired Rin with the same awe that he would have felt before a divine being, together with something of the ague that a small crayfish would conceive in the presence of a predatory eel.

'_No.'_ Rin shook his head. _'I'll race with him and prove I'm quicker,' _he promised himself as the boy reached the opposite shore and back again to the starting point, much faster than the other two.

"You're incredible, Haru-chan!" the upbeat boy cheered him on, totally unashamed of his own defeat, as though any different outcome would have been unnatural. The taller boy, too, patted the so-called Haru on the shoulder.

'_How can these humans be so spineless?'_

Just then, the flaxen-haired boy made an abrupt turn at Rin's direction, making the young kappa's breath hitch. The human boy strode across the water closer and closer toward him.

Rin dived immediately, praying that the rock in front of him was large enough to conceal his body. The last time his heart thumped so loudly it had been when he had been caught red-handed in his attempt to hide his father's royal scepter as a joke. He got away with scolds, butt smacks, and grounding back then, but would the humans let him go?

The human boy stopped by a rock, three meters away from where Rin was. Picking a green spherical object connected to the rock by means of a rope, he said, "It seems our watermelon is cooled enough. I'll grab the knife."

"I'm coming with you; gonna put these fish in a tank." A pail in hand, the lazy-eyed boy ran along behind him toward the lone house on a nearby hillside—since the river was located in the countryside, the residential houses were sparse.

Before the two boys went completely out of earshot, Rin heard the distant conversation, "We should come here again next summer holiday; I'm sure grandpa will be glad to have us."

The so-called Haru went back to swimming along the current of the smooth stream. Among the ripples, he glided down into the cool, full space of the water. He opened his arms to meet the embrace of the glittering blue expanse of the river, pulsing with his own invading motion in a center of the ripples. The whole otherworld, soothingly secluded, he had to himself.

Rin thought that the best opportunity to present himself would be now, when the human boy was swimming himself into serious hypnotic swim states, swirling into a vortex of internal calm. This way, Haru would probably be preoccupied enough not to ask him too many questions.

"Hey," Rin called, appearing from behind a large rock, "You like swimming?"

Haru stopped, regained his footing, and turned to face Rin. He sure did not talk much; his single blink probably translated as: "I didn't see you arriving; where did you come from?"

"Race with me. We'll go to the opposite bank back and forth," Rin challenged him.

There was a pause that made Rin think Haru was going to decline, but when the human spoke at last, his monotonous words were: "Why are you naked?"

'_Because kappa can't conjure clothes out of thin air—that's why!'_ Rin nearly blurted, but there was no way he would confess the truth. He gritted his teeth. If the water current were strong, he could have lied that his pants had been washed out. As it was, he could not think of a believable reason and was forced to resort to a yell, "What's the big deal? We're both boys! More importantly, are you going to race with me or not?"

"To me, speed isn't important."

"Oh, yeah? Why did you ask your friends to start at the same time with you, if you hadn't needed to compare your speed with theirs?"

In spite of Rin's accusatory tone, the pitch in Haru's voice was as flat as ever, "Swimming together is nice."

"Tch! Fine, just … swim with me, will you?" Balling his fists, Rin strode to the edge of the river and prepared himself to swim. To both his annoyance and relief, Haru followed him.

Thus, the two boys swam. Their bodies, of exactly the same length, stretched across the water in the spangled shade of the leaves from an overhanging dogwood tree. Bubbles from the rippling surface stirred-up specks of dark leaves swung and fled around their legs. Cleaving through the water surface, Rin dashed forward as fast as his limbs allowed. Much to his dismay, no matter how hard he struggled, he could not overtake Haru. That human boy did not even break his perfect form, moved as effortlessly and as gracefully as before, but he came out faster still.

It was a close margin. The mere gap lasting less than two seconds was all it took to shatter Rin's pride. He, who lived in the water, was bested by a human. Breath leaving his lungs in loud puffs, he hit the water surface, creating a huge splash. Droplets of water, mingled with his tears, cascaded down his body into the sunlit river.

The fact that no triumphant gloat left the human's mouth brought no consolation to the young kappa. After that inexcusable defeat, Rin went to train in the deep sea; while kappa was the fastest of all freshwater creatures, merfolk, which lived in salty waters, were even faster. His mother objected at first, but his father deemed it would be a good experience for him to taste defeat and then rose stronger than ever. His little sister clung to him with fat blobs of tears on her eyes the day he departed. His big brother wished him luck with a sad smile on his face.

The sea people treated Rin as an outcast. Mermaids gossiped behind his back that he was an illegitimate child or he had committed some sin grave enough to exile him from the river. Merboys constantly bullied him with various methods, from simply calling him names to throwing empty shells whenever he passed them by. The younger ones did not even hesitate to pull his hair and bite him. Worst of all, although his gills could survive the salinity, the briny water irritated his skin. Nevertheless, he endured for the sake of becoming a faster swimmer.

Rin re-challenged Haru two years later. This time, he created a fake identity as a deceased fisherman's son who, in his aspiration to be an Olympic swimmer, had studied in an Australian swimming school. He found Haru standing on the other side of a railroad line, and he could not immediately answer when Haru asked why he had not called. He managed to get away with a corny line, "It would have been embarrassing," but didn't Haru know how truly embarrassing it was for him to make a fuss over so many things just to swim with Haru again?

Having his memory modified, Sasabe Gorō—one of the coaches in the swimming club where Haru belonged—let them use the pool when the premise was empty. Their combat arena smelled strongly of chlorine. It was the first time Rin wore swimming goggles, and in his excitement, he pulled the goggles' elastic band and let it hit the back of his head with a pronounced flick. He liked the feeling, and he would repeat this ritual before each time a swimming goggle settled around his head for years to come.

The two adolescents swam together, this time, with no rocks, aquatic plants and animals, or earth sediment to hinder them. Instead, they were surrounded by transparent water that exposed their every movement, every stroke, every detail of their honed skills. Rin darted forward with the vehemence of shark whereas Haru, with the vivacity of dolphin.

Yet, Haru beat Rin again in the end. Did those two years of hardship hold no meaning? With sprinkling tears, he ran from Haru's sight and returned to the river. He wanted to quit swimming as a sport. What had he been so worked up for anyway? Kappa could swim naturally and it was not rapidity that determined the quality of a kappa.

Rin sulked in his room for days, refusing meals and causing worry over his family and the palatial retainers. It was not until Jun, his elder brother, came to him and explained that every creature must face challenge instead of turning tail from it did Rin become ready to set out for the open sea again, where Rin trained for three more years.

The seventeen-year-old Rin decided to meet his family once more before he went to challenge Haru again. Once he found himself within the palace gates, he discovered that many had changed during his three years of absence: the old sentinels had been replaced by younger generation, some of his mother's ladies-in-waiting had wedded, and a gigantic crab that was his brother's pet had bred a multitude of baby crabs.

The biggest change of all was his little sister. No longer was Gou a demure, obedient child whom he once had known, but an angry teenager confronting her parents in the throne room and in the presence of the council of elders, no less.

"It's my life and I want to live with him!" he heard her yell.

Quietly Rin crept toward Jun, who was staring anxiously at Gou—all eyes in the room were too focused on Gou to notice Rin's presence.

"Ani-ue," he called, "What happened here?"

"Rin!" Jun let out a startled gasp. Then his surprised face melded into a warm smile and he patted his little brother on the shoulder. "Welcome back! When did you get home?"

"Just now. More importantly, why is Gou screaming like that?"

Jun opened his mouth to answer Rin's question, but his whisper was drowned by his father's furious roar, "Are you too blind to see that there can be no union between kappa and humans, young lady?!"

Rin's eyes widened in disbelief. Between Gou's high-pitched retort about how obsolete tradition should not be imposed on the contemporary generation, he asked Jun, "Don't tell me she has fallen in love with a human…"

Jun heaved a sigh, the look in his eyes reflecting his conflicted feelings: the desire to aid to his sister's happiness and the guilt for deviating from the decorum. "Apparently, the boy saved her from a fisherman's hook. His swimming skill is beyond doubt, to be able to lap across the raging river during such a storm, but—"

"Wait," Rin interrupted, "Storm? Why would Gou want to swim on a stormy day in the first place?"

"She missed you so much and left for the sea without telling anyone. The storm had started to arise before she left this river, but her inexperience prevented her from noticing the whimsical change of nature. Still, she should have been all right if she had stayed in the deep waters. Halfway her journey, when she reached the estuary, she was engulfed by schools of fish in their attempt to escape from a certain fisherman—he probably considers capturing certain fish that normally surface only on roiling water as an achievement. At any rate, the moment she realized that the hook got caught on her hair, it was already too late. The fisherman was rolling his reel to pull her up. She managed to shift into a human's shape, but still unable to disentangle herself."

Jun cast another worried glance at Gou, who was now claiming that she would rather be disinherited, before he continued his account, "Although the fisherman was unlikely to kill a fellow human for his meal, there was no guarantee that the lone man would not dishonor her, especially since no clothes covered her bareness. It was then that the human boy came to her rescue; he was challenging the turbulent water as a practice for the so-called tournament. Not only did he remove the hook from her, but he also covered her with his towel after they swam ashore."

One of the elders in the council now rebuked Gou for her unscrupulousness.

With balled fists, Rin bellowed, "WILL YOU ALL STOP GANGING UP AGAINST GOU?!"

All eyes immediately turned to Rin. Gou burst into tears and dashed forward to hug him, crying, "Onii-sama… Rin onii-sama…"

Jun stepped forward. With a much more composed tone, the crown prince spoke, "Father, mother, distinguished elders, my sister may have her fault. Yet, even a criminal deserves someone to defend her in the face of the prosecutor, judge, and juries."

The wizened kappa, skin mottled with age, stubbornly insisted, "What is there to defend? It is plain to see that she broke our rules!"

The king raised his hand, and everyone in the throne room fell silent. Brow furrowing still, he ordained, "Let us hear your opinion, Jun."

"As we all have been aware of, any child born from the union between a kappa and a human will not possess gills to survive underwater, hence resulting in the expulsion of the kappa parent from the river. Gou still decides to live on land despite knowing this; it is only proper that we, her brethren, give her our blessing as long as we are certain that the human will do everything within his capacity to make her happy. I therefore propose that Gou is given a trial period to live as a human until her eighteenth birthday—the age that humans in this country regarded legal for marriage."

"Preposterous!" A different elder shouted.

In lieu of raising his hand again, the king rose from his throne. His webbed foot stomped the ground. Veins of anger sprouted all over his face. "SILENCE!"

The elder who interrupted Jun's explanation looked both abashed and livid about the king's defense for his eldest son.

"Continue, Jun," the king spoke in a quieter voice, although speckles of anger still resided within his timbre.

"To test the trueness of their love, both my sister and the human boy must have their memories modified so that they can no longer remember each other."

Gou's pupils dilated and she looked like she was about to squeak, but hastily covered her mouth with both hands.

"If they happen to fall in love again even after starting over from scratch, Gou may continue to live as a human and, in time, marry the man. Otherwise, she must return here and live the rest of her life as a kappa."

The queen indignantly interjected, "You are going to let my barely sixteen-year-old daughter to go out there unchaperoned? I shall not allow this!"

"Then I'll watch over her," Rin volunteered. "In fact, I'm going to watch over that human boy, too. There's no way I'll leave my sister in a complete stranger's hands and a human one, to boot. If she's going to marry him one day, at least I must make sure he's worthy of her first."

"So, now I'm going to lose not one child, but two children?!" the queen uttered a dismayed protestation.

"I'm going to reclaim my honor from losing to a human. That's not against our law!" Rin shouted.

Gou added, "If you forbid me to go, I'm going to starve myself to death. You'll still lose your child, either way!"

"Enough, both of you!" The king was beyond irate, and the palace ground shook from his seismic anger.

The throne room fell into quietness once again, save for the sniffles of the weeping queen.

The queen dowager put her arms around her daughter-in-law's shoulders. "Children come through, but not from, parents; they are the sons and daughters of Life itself. You may shower them with love but not decide their lives."

The king had to massage the bridge of his nose before he spoke in rather quiet volume, "Gou deserves a chance."

The princess' face brightened at once.

"Yet, that does not mean I shall serve her before him the way a cook would lay down a plateful of food before a hungry a diner."

Gou cringed.

"Rin, you will attend the same school as the human to study his character and background. Gou, you should go to another school."

It was Rin's turn to cringe; he wanted to swim together with Haru. However, Gou's decision opened his eyes. In a firm tone, she said, "I'll gratefully take that opportunity. Thank you, father."

Rin turned at his younger sister, wondering what made her so confident that she could win her lover back while encumbered with such disadvantage. How could he himself shrink in fear for not being able to swim with his rival? While attending a different school meant he could not swim with Haru on daily basis, he could compete with him in a formal tournament.

A grin spreading across his face, Rin affirmed, "I'll gladly take that chance, too."

That was how Gou came to Iwatobi High School, and Rin, to Samezuka.

###

Presently, sitting upright on his bunk bed, Rin closed his eyes and took a deep a breath, concentrating hard to invoke the powers within him. In this manner, he renewed the memory modification spell that he cast upon the humans: official documents such as student ID and birth certificate, neighbors and relatives, his schoolmates at Samezuka, the members of Iwatobi Swimming Club and the fake memories about them going to elementary school together with him as well as adding the picture of himself in the photographs they owned. The effect of the spell was meant to last a lifetime, but still it would be better to be safe than be sorry. Although the spell itself was quite simple, it exhausted Rin owing to its wide scope of targets.

Rin cautiously crept out of his bed, taking extra care that his movements made no rustle; his roommate, an underclassman by the name of Aiichiro Nitori, was still sleeping soundly on the upper bunk. Nitori did not stir from his sleep as the door shut with a soft click behind Rin.

Donned in his tracksuit and sneakers, Rin jogged along the perimeter of Samezuka Academy. He should stay in bed. Each step felt heavy with stamina depletion; the spell earlier put toil on his body. Yet, running was the only way to clear his mind. Nitori was a good human, but it took more than just a good human to talk about his nature. No human at all, actually.

The sun had painted the sky with blinding white when Rin returned to his bedroom to get a fresh towel and headed toward the shower room. Breakfast in the dining hall passed uneventfully and lesson after lesson came and went until the school bell chimed to announce the beginning of lunch break.

Having fallen asleep until the middle of break, Rin's choice of meal was now limited to the bread variety when he reached the cafeteria—there would not be enough time to eat rice set. To his dismay, most of the breads had already been sold out, leaving only two lonely packages on the shelves: melon bread and yakisoba bread.

Rin sighed. He had consumed melon bread the previous day, so he did not want to eat that again today. While he had no issue against yakisoba, he hated it when served together with bread. How could there be so many humans who could enjoy such an atrocious combination?

He was still mentally groaning when a voice called him from behind. "If you aren't going to buy those, I will."

Rin walked away to let the student purchase the last two breads, and settled with two cartons of juice and a bottle of energy drink from the vending machine.

"There you are, Rin-oujisama!"

The remark nearly made Rin choke on his drink. It was the blessing of fortune that nobody else was within earshot, so that those words were not overheard. In spite the speaker's human guise, Rin recognized him to be a junior official from his father's palace.

"Emergency, my prince…" the official gasped, still out of breath from running, his hair slick with sweat. "Ryuujin-sama's _kanju_ was stolen."

"The sea god's tide-ebbing jewel?" Rin asked in disbelief, "How can anyone steal such a thing?"

"His Majesty will hold the answer to your question, Rin-sama. However, please return to the underwater palace at once, for the land is in danger of inundation. Another messenger is fetching Gou-oujosama as we speak."

Rin's eyes widened. If such humongous flood were to occur, what about everyone who lived on land?

_Haru!_

Ignoring his father's messenger, Rin ran toward the station. During his journey, the minutes dragged by, and the 130 kilometers per hour speed of the mini shinkansen was nowhere near fast enough. He dashed as soon as the train door opened, nearly colliding with a man on the station stairs.

Haru, however, was not where Rin had expected him to be. He was standing by a runnel, not far from the Iwatobi High School, an iridescent scale hovering an inch away from his hand. Yet, more than that, the scale was invisible to human eyes, unless said humans possessed exceptional spiritual power.

Lips parted, Rin was about to ask, _'Haru, what are you?'_

However, Haru told Rin in his usual flat tone, "We must hurry; the tide-ebbing jewel has already been set in motion. What's more, your elder brother is in a graver danger than the rest of us."

"How did you … never mind. What do you mean by my brother is in danger?"

"The demon who stole the jewel used your brother as a hostage by possessing his body. Some are not aware of this fact and accuse him guilty of treason."

The furrow on Rin's brow deepened. "Let's go to my father's palace for now. My family may be able to come up with the solution to save the land."

Haru nodded. "It'll be faster if we swim in our true form."

With that, Haru plunged himself into the water. He did not strip, and yet, the moment he came into contact with the water, he dispersed into a million scales that rearranged themselves into a long, serpentine form. Except that serpents did not have horns. Nor whiskers. Nor mane.

"You're a mizuchi!" Rin gaped in disbelief. "All these years I thought I was beaten by a human but you're a water creature after all! You could have told me, dammit!"

"You didn't ask."

It made sense now why Haru had known about the theft of Ryuujin's tide-ebbing jewel: he left his scales afloat throughout the waters of Japan and they, in turn, kept him informed of the important occurrences. This way, the river deity could enjoy the life as a human being without neglecting his duties.

The aquatic dragon glided in the water, his nacreous scales gleaming with every fraction of his movements. Rin, too, assumed his kappa form and went along with him. Together, the two water creatures swam into the depth.

OWARI

* * *

Sorry for the inconclusive ending; I got a writer's blog and I can't tell for sure whether I'll ever get the inspiration for the story's continuation. T_T


End file.
